Bitterwood (12 page)

“True. And you followers of Ragnar believe that we’re to fight the dragons at every turn,” said Cron. “We see how well that philosophy is working out. Men
are
inferior and subservient to dragons. The world will be a better place for everyone once we swallow that.”

“You mock Ragnar’s teachings?” said Tulk. “Speak truthfully. You know Kamon’s—” Tulk abruptly stopped speaking in order to spit, “—heretical philosophies, but of course, so do I. I will not condemn you for mere knowledge. But to practice his teachings is beyond all decency. Are you, or are you not, a follower of that foul prophet?”

Cron sighed. “I don’t think it’s any of your business. Besides, we have other things on our minds than a discussion of philosophy.”

“I am duty bound to slay followers of Kamon,” said Tulk, stopping to spit once more. He clenched his fists. He had to know the truth. Traveling further in the company of a Kamonite could risk his very soul. “We travel no further until you answer my question. Ragnar himself would slit my throat if he knew I’d traveled this far in the company of one of the fallen. Do you follow Kamon’s teachings?” He spit once more.

“If you keep spitting,” Cron said, “you’re going to turn to dust.”

“I’d sooner be dust than the companion of a heretic.”

“I don’t see any guards around Stench’s place,” said Cron, turning away from Tulk. “I’m making a run for it.”

The young man sprinted off. Tulk followed, afraid of being stranded. They dashed across the open ground that led to the red, boxy blob. As Tulk got within a few dozen of it, he could see that Cron had spoken the truth. Stench’s place
was
shaped like a ship, a hundred feet long, lying on its side. Could such an enormous structure have ever floated on the water? If it had been seaworthy once, it was no longer. Age had rendered most of the ship into a mound of rust. Holes gaped in what had once been solid plates of iron. The rear of the ship had collapsed under its own weight at some point. What had once been a hatch in the deck now served as a door, reachable via rickety wooden stairs.

“Stench!” Cron cried out as he vanished into the dark reaches of the hold.

“I’ll be damned,” echoed a reply from the darkness. “Cron! Is it really you?”

Tulk carefully made his way up the stairs and poked his head into the dark doorway. The first thing he noticed was, unsurprisingly, the stench. Swamp water saturated with the bloated corpses of skunks was the only odor he could compare it to. No wonder dragons steered clear of this place. He’d heard their sensitivity to smell was more developed than that of humans.

What had once been a hold of the giant ship had been converted into a bar. The room was long and thin; a wooden ladder led down to the floor, which at one time, Tulk assumed, had been a wall. A half dozen patrons sat around, too drunk to move, slumped against the wall on low couches. A wooden plank at the end of the room served as the bar itself. Behind the bar was a metal barrel full of some sort of flaming liquid. The smoke rising from the blue-green fire carried the horrible odor that permeated the place. A bald, withered man stood next to it, smiling a toothless grin.

“I see you brought a friend,” the old man said. “Tulk, I’m guessing. I heard you both escaped.”

“Word travels fast,” Cron said. “Is there a price on our heads yet?”

“Could be,” said the man who Tulk guessed to be Stench.

Tulk climbed down the ladder. He said to Cron, “If there is a price on our heads, you shouldn’t be reminding people of it.”

“We’re all friends here,” said Stench. “No one will turn you in. Besides, I’ve been told to treat you well by someone I’d rather not mess with.”

“Venderex, right?” Cron asked. “The wizard. He saved us. Why’s he doing this?”

“Can’t say,” said Stench.

“I’ve heard he has a human companion,” said Tulk. “I thought I saw a girl at the ceremony. I kept trying to make her out. I can’t be sure, though.”

Cron chuckled. “I noticed you gawking. Next time you’re in the presence of Ragnar, ask him to fix your eyes. That girl stood out at the ceremony. There were more eyes on her than on us, I wager.”

“You saw her?” Tulk asked. “It’s true? The wizard has a human for a pet?”

“Raised her like a daughter, I hear,” said Stench.

“That’s horrible,” said Tulk. “I’d rather be a slave than a pet.”

“Lucky you wound up in the right line of work, then,” said Stench.

“I don’t think it would be so bad to be a pet,” said Cron. “And, if humans and dragons are both God’s creation as Kamon teaches—”

“Again you speak his name!” Tulk said, his voice echoing against the metal walls.

“Take care,” said Cron. “This is a bad place to be sympathetic to Ragnar. Right, Stench?”

“Look,” said Stench. “You’re both in a bad place, period. Cron, you know I’m a loyal Kamonite like you. Every man in here is. But none of us have the luxury of squabbling about religion right now. If the king has his armies looking for you, I’ve got to get you both far down the river as soon as possible. You can spend the night here in my hidden room. Tomorrow, I’ll smuggle you downriver in a fishing boat. But when you reach the sea, you’re on your own. Tulk, if you do follow Ragnar, put aside your hatred of Kamonites long enough to get to the ocean. And Cron, can you not provoke him? It’s like you’re trying to pick a fight.”

“Sorry,” said Cron. “I’m not in the best of moods. I’ve spent all day expecting to be murdered at any second. Knowing that it might be a fellow human that does the deed is a bit much to swallow.”

Tulk couldn’t believe this cruel twist of fate. Alone in a den of Kamonites. To be faithful to the teachings of Ragnar would mean certain death. How many could he kill before he died, especially since he had no weapon? He gazed at the fire barrel. Perhaps he could somehow… then he dropped the thought. He didn’t want to get any closer to that smoke than he already was.

“In the name of all that’s holy, what are you burning?” Tulk asked, nearly gagging as he thought about the odor.

“My own special blend of herbs and skunk glands dissolved in hundred proof alcohol. You like it?” said Stench. “There’s pockets of stagnant water all through this place. Without the smoke we’d be sucked dry by mosquitoes. And as a bonus, it keeps dragons away. People get used to the smell. Dragons never do.”

“No,” said a loud, deep voice from the other side of the wall. “No, I don’t think I could ever get used to this smell.”

Tulk looked toward the iron wall in the direction of the voice. Then the whole room shook as something slammed against the metal. The noise was deafening. A shower of rust flakes fell, coating Tulk’s skin. Suddenly the room trembled again, as a red, scaly fist larger than Tulk’s head punched through the metal. The fist withdrew to be replaced by dagger-like claws that gripped the edges of the aged iron. The room shuddered as the claws peeled the metal back, popping the rivets free. The wall flew away, tossed over the shoulder of an enormous sun-dragon sporting a bandage covering his right eye.

“Gentlemen,” said the dragon, “I’ve had a truly bad day. I intend to take it out on you.”

ZANZEROTH LOOKED AT
the frightened humans cowering before him. He could barely see them. Even if he’d had both eyes, the smoke stung so badly it was all he could do not to clench them shut. He tossed the bundled swords into the exposed room.

“Weapons, gentlemen,” said Zanzeroth. “The finest swords this world has ever seen. One of those blades had a taste of me about twenty years ago. I’m giving you the chance to finish its meal.”

The humans didn’t move. They merely stood, slack-jawed and trembling. Zanzeroth sighed, reached out to unroll the bundle and revealed the swords. Then he took the bear skin that the swords were wrapped in and stepped back from the room to get away from the smoke and to give the men room to maneuver. There were nine people; six of them looked too inebriated to stand. But fate must have had a hand in this, given that he only brought three swords.

Zanzeroth ripped a strip from the bear’s hide and brought it to his face, blindfolding himself.

“I assure you, I cannot see,” said Zanzeroth. “And thanks to that horrible smoke, I can’t smell you. You’ll never have a better chance to slay me.”

“We don’t want to fight,” one of the men said.

“Then I’ll kill you without you putting up a struggle. Or you can kill me first. I’ll be fighting unarmed. Tooth and claw versus steel. I honestly think you have a chance.”

“Why are you doing this?” another asked.

“To find out if I’m wrong,” Zanzeroth said with a slight nod. “To find out if I’m still the dragon I think I am. I’ll silently count to three. Then I will kill you if you choose not to fight.”

Zanzeroth fell silent and spread his wings. Sightless and without the benefit of smell, he could rely only on his hearing and the sensitivity of his wings to small changes in air pressure. In theory, he should know if one of the men rushed him.

And in practice, the sound of their footfalls on the iron floor fixed their positions in his mind. He heard the scrape of metal against metal as the men grabbed the weapons. Then, one said, “Kamon teaches obedience to dragons. If one asks us to kill him, who are we to deny that wish?”

Suddenly, two feet rapidly advanced. A grunt. A rush of wind ruffled the feather-scales of his wings. One of the men—the youngest, Cron, judging by the stride—had leapt from the ledge on which they stood and became level with Zanzeroth’s chest. With his sword extended the arc of his dive would drive the shining steel blade deep into Zanzeroth’s gut.

It was a bold and powerful attack, if the blade had stood any chance of reaching its target. With a flap of his wings Zanzeroth launched himself a yard into the air and kicked out with his hind claws. His talons sank into his opponent’s torso, snapping bone, puncturing lung. He kicked again to send the corpse flying and readied himself for the next attack.

Only, as he listened, he heard another blow, of steel striking bone, followed by a gurgle. With a
clang
a body fell to the iron floor. Then, a movement in the air… Another of his foes had leapt… but not at him. The unseen man leapt to the side. He heard the man hit ground and collapse. And the third man… The third man was responsible for the wet gurgling noise from directly in front of him.

With a sigh, Zanzeroth removed his blindfold.

The oldest of the three men lay before him with a sword in his back. Off to the side the slave Tulk was struggling to his feet. Zanzeroth took a moment to look at Cron’s body, slumped on top of the rusting metal. Zanzeroth felt pleased at the amount of damage he’d done to his opponent. He’d given death every chance to take him and survived, even blind and unarmed. It hadn’t been age that had cost him an eye… it had been carelessness. He could never regain his youth but he could sharpen his wits. Zanzeroth felt certain that when he met the man who’d taken his eye, even if he was the legendary Bitterwood, their next fight would end differently. And were he to stumble over a certain invisible wizard… Well, an invisible foe and a visible one are all the same if your eyes are closed.

Tulk was now limping off and making quite good speed considering that his ankle was broken. Without bothering to look at the slave, Zanzeroth freed the loop of braided leather from his hip and whipped it to the side, snaring Tulk by his damaged ankle. Tulk shrieked like a wounded rabbit as Zanzeroth pulled him from his feet and dangled him before his eyes.

“Why did you kill your friend?” he asked.

“He was no friend!” Tulk shouted. “He was a filthy Kamonite!” Tulk spat, the spittle landing on Zanzeroth’s leg. “His kind shall not be suffered to live!”

“I see,” said Zanzeroth. “Since you’re in a talkative mood, I want you to tell me what you know about Bitterwood.”

“Bitterwood?” Tulk asked, plainly bewildered. “Why do you want to hear ghost stories?”

From the tone, Zanzeroth could tell this wasn’t a bluff. Tulk knew nothing of Bitterwood’s involvement. “If it wasn’t Bitterwood, who killed Bodiel?”

“I don’t know!” said Tulk. “Neither Cron nor I knew Bodiel was dead until we were told so.”

“By whom?” Zanzeroth asked, giving the dangling human’s leg a jerk.

“I didn’t see him!” said Tulk, his voice cracking with pain. “Cron and Stench said it was the king’s wizard. But I never saw him. I only heard a voice in the night.”

“You are proving to be something of a disappointment,” said Zanzeroth. “Shouting out the answers is robbing me of a good excuse to torture you.”

“There’s no need for that,” said Tulk, sounding resigned. “You’ve caught me. I’m a slave. Just take me back.”

“So you can escape again? I don’t think so. And as a slave, may I point out that you disobeyed a direct order to fight me? And killed a man who might have? I don’t think I need to wait for Albekizan’s orders to know your fate.”

Zanzeroth lifted the human higher. He carried him to the smoking barrel.

“Please,” said Tulk. “I’ve told you everything I know!”

“I believe you,” said Zanzeroth. Then he lowered the struggling man headfirst through the flames into the smoky liquid. Tulk splashed and struggled, sending the foul smelling goop everywhere for a moment or two. Zanzeroth grimaced, knowing this wasn’t something he would enjoy licking from his talons.

Tulk’s struggles grew increasingly feeble. He fell still, then kicked once more. Then once again, before his muscles went slack.

Finally, Zanzeroth dropped him into the barrel. He stepped back, gathering his prized swords. Some of the horrible fluid had splashed onto one of the blades. If this didn’t corrode the finish, nothing would. Zanzeroth glanced back at the half dozen drunken men who still held their positions, staring at him in terror.

“Gentlemen,” said Zanzeroth. He tilted his head toward the bar. “Drinks are on me.”

Then with a leap and a flap, he took to the sky.

AS NIGHT FELL
, the dragons assembled at the edge of the Burning Ground. This ceremonial field was a circle many hundred yards across, the ground now permanently blackened with the soot of many generations of funeral pyres. Earth-dragon guards stood around the edges, their bodies painted in solemn ceremonial hues of gray. They stood as still as statues as the royalty of the kingdom strode past.